On July 9, 2026, US Representative Ro Khanna was visiting the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, a Palestinian Bedouin village in the southern West Bank that was abandoned after escalating settler attacks and then demolished. Armed settlers blocked his van. More arrived. When Israeli military vehicles appeared, Khanna assumed they were there to help. Instead, IDF soldiers sided with the settlers and continued the detention for over an hour, only releasing the group after Khanna reached the US Embassy in Jerusalem. The settlers told a translator they did not care that he was a member of the US Congress.

Israeli settlers, brandishing American-made M4 rifles, detained me and other Americans on my trip to Palestine, Khanna posted on X, with video showing IDF soldiers standing alongside the armed settlers. He has called on Netanyahu to investigate and prosecute those responsible. Israel's ambassador blamed Khanna for failing to coordinate his trip with the Israeli government. No settlers have been held accountable. Netanyahu has not apologised. The rifles were paid for by American taxpayers.

This is not an isolated incident. 2026 is the deadliest year for settler violence against Palestinians since records began, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the past two and a half years. At least nine Americans have been killed in the West Bank since 2022. Villages are demolished. Schools are burned. Livestock is stolen. Crops are destroyed. Families are expelled at gunpoint. Perpetrators are almost never punished. Amnesty International has called it a state-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing, backed by Israeli law, Israeli courts, and Israeli soldiers.

The EU can impose economy-crushing sanctions on a country within 48 hours when it chooses to. For Palestine, the calculation is different. After 78 years of occupation. After the ICJ ruled in 2024 that Israeli settlements are illegal and obligated all states to end their complicity. After the UN concluded Israel is committing genocide. After Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch declared it an apartheid state. Today, July 13, EU foreign ministers met in Brussels, acknowledged the situation in the West Bank is really intolerable, and spent the rest of the meeting arguing about whether a trade ban on settlement goods requires a unanimous vote or a simple majority. Spain's foreign minister publicly accused the EU of stalling. The matter was referred to ambassadors. No ban was passed. No action was taken.

American weapons in settler hands. IDF soldiers who protect them. An ambassador who blames the victim. A Congress that funds it all. An EU that calls it intolerable and debates procedure. Palestinians have been waiting for the world to act for 78 years. The world keeps holding meetings.